Woah. Dude, that's so cool! *Hugs DLE and jumps up and down*_________________I am a Star Wars fan. That doesn't mean that I hate or love Jar Jar. That doesn't mean I hate or love Lucas, or agree or disagree 100% with him. That doesn't mean I prefer the PT over the OT, or vice versa. That doesn't mean I hate the EU, or even love all of it (or even read all of it). These are not prerequisites. Being a man is not a prerequisite. Being a geek is not a prerequisite. The only prerequisite is that I love something about Star Wars. I am a Star Wars fan.

Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2012 9:34 am

Message

Mara Jade SkywalkerAdministrator

Joined: 15 Feb 2008Posts: 6257Location: Beyond Shadows

No idea where to put this, so:

I live in a large area, meaning I do not live in the middle of nowhere. We have everything we could want in our own parish (like a county), and if we're in a city mood, we can hop right across the lake to New Orleans. But this is not to mean we live in a densely populated region like New York City or DC. This is not walking territory, you must drive where you wish to go. So...a minimum of 15 miles is expected to get most anywhere. A maximum of 50-75 is when something becomes a "drive". We just grow up that way, these distances aren't considered long, they're normal.

As an aside, we also don't measure things in distance, we measure them in time. I used miles for your sake, but when someone here asks how far Walmart is, "20 miles" as an answer would be meaningless. We don't think in terms of miles. It's like most Americans trying to think using the metric system. Centimeters don't have a meaning, we cannot grasp how long 56 centimeters is unless we stop to convert. And that's how we are with miles where I live. The correct answer to "How far is Walmart" would be "About 20 minutes". And to me this makes sense, because what good is knowing how far something is when you have no idea how long it will take you to get there? The distance is meaningless when you have to consider red lights and traffic and speed limits. 25 miles in the country will be much more quickly traveled than 25 miles in the city. But anyway, I digress.

So we have these two visitors in the office today from DC. And I hear one of them talking about where they have to go later, "But Bob, we need to leave earlier than that. It's 25 miles away!" And I snickered at his distress, because 25 miles for us is a quite average distance. I drove further than that to get to school. I drive farther than that to go to my friend's house. I drive farther than that to go shopping. That's normal.

Anyway, I just think it's funny comparing differing in-country cultures. The things we're used to that other people just don't understand. We're all so alike, and yet we're not. It's fun to observe/study. _________________"It's not about the legacy you leave, it's about the life you live." ~Mara Jade Skywalker

Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2012 11:34 am

Message

Taral-DLOSMaster

Joined: 23 Nov 2010Posts: 1988Location: Ontario, Canada

I travel a few times a year for work, mostly to Paris and Geneva, but occasionally to other places too (Berlin, Beijing, across Canada, etc.)

One thing I like to do is compare certain specific things wherever I go. Namely:

1- How much gas costs. I stop complaining about $1.20 per litre when in Geneva it approaches $2.

2- McDonald's, in terms of menu, names, and price. In Beijing, they recognized immediately that I do not speak Mandarin, and so they had a visual menu that you pointed to. Things tasted about the same, and were dirt cheap (23 Yuan for a quarter-pounder with cheese combo, which is less than $2). And in case you're a fan of Pulp Fiction, yes, in Paris it is called a Royale with Cheese

3- Travel time between places. In Canada (and in the US), the country is so big that driving from one city to another in the same State/Province can take hours. So it's fun when a 3 hour train brings you from one end of the country to another, or well into a separate one.

4- General price of things. Figure out an easy conversion of the exchange rate that you can approximate in your head (A Euro is about 1.3 Canadian dollars; a Swiss franc and a US dollar are roughly par with a Canadian dollar, etc.) Based on that, compare what you paid vs. what you would've paid back home. To use the McDonald's example, a combo cost less than $2 in Beijing, but almost $20 in Geneva.

My favorite thing though is how different people relate to the weather or understand it. I get a certain level of entertainment when people remark how cold it is when it is in the 60s and only September. So I like comparing how different areas conceive of the weather and what consistutes bad, average day, and good weather._________________

Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2012 1:13 pm

Message

Mad WookKnight

Joined: 14 Apr 2011Posts: 464

I live in Texas so 60 degrees is Heaven.

Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2012 1:27 pm

Message

Taral-DLOSMaster

Joined: 23 Nov 2010Posts: 1988Location: Ontario, Canada

Salaris Vorn wrote:

Here in New York we also determine distance by time, not miles too.

There was a Seinfeld joke about how you can't do the reverse. "How far away is it? 20 minutes." vs. "How long till you're done work? 3 Miles."

Salaris Vorn wrote:

My favorite thing though is how different people relate to the weather or understand it. I get a certain level of entertainment when people remark how cold it is when it is in the 60s and only September. So I like comparing how different areas conceive of the weather and what consistutes bad, average day, and good weather.

It depends on the season, though, right? I keep my heater in the winter in the mid-60s F (I can't switch it to metric lol), but in the summer I keep the AC in the mid-70s. So my AC is hotter than my heater.

There's 80 degrees celsius between the hottest days in the summer and the coldest days in the winter where I am. So we're never comfortable, except in Fall and Spring (and even then, it tends to rain too much lol)._________________http://taralbooks.blogspot.ca

Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2012 6:21 pm

Message

Salaris VornModerator

Joined: 02 Feb 2008Posts: 2356Location: New York, USA

Ok so I grant this is about a Star Trek warp drive, not a Star Wars hyperdrive but I still thought it was pretty neat that there might be a way to go faster than light:

I live in a large area, meaning I do not live in the middle of nowhere. We have everything we could want in our own parish (like a county), and if we're in a city mood, we can hop right across the lake to New Orleans. But this is not to mean we live in a densely populated region like New York City or DC. This is not walking territory, you must drive where you wish to go. So...a minimum of 15 miles is expected to get most anywhere. A maximum of 50-75 is when something becomes a "drive". We just grow up that way, these distances aren't considered long, they're normal.

As an aside, we also don't measure things in distance, we measure them in time. I used miles for your sake, but when someone here asks how far Walmart is, "20 miles" as an answer would be meaningless. We don't think in terms of miles. It's like most Americans trying to think using the metric system. Centimeters don't have a meaning, we cannot grasp how long 56 centimeters is unless we stop to convert. And that's how we are with miles where I live. The correct answer to "How far is Walmart" would be "About 20 minutes". And to me this makes sense, because what good is knowing how far something is when you have no idea how long it will take you to get there? The distance is meaningless when you have to consider red lights and traffic and speed limits. 25 miles in the country will be much more quickly traveled than 25 miles in the city. But anyway, I digress.

So we have these two visitors in the office today from DC. And I hear one of them talking about where they have to go later, "But Bob, we need to leave earlier than that. It's 25 miles away!" And I snickered at his distress, because 25 miles for us is a quite average distance. I drove further than that to get to school. I drive farther than that to go to my friend's house. I drive farther than that to go shopping. That's normal.

Anyway, I just think it's funny comparing differing in-country cultures. The things we're used to that other people just don't understand. We're all so alike, and yet we're not. It's fun to observe/study.

Being from the DC area, this is SO TRUE.

I grew up in Southern Maryland, where the average speed limit is about 60mph. So when something is 10 miles away, we'd just say 10 minutes away. When I started commuting to DC, it was 45 miles away and took me about an hour to get there. The first half hour flew by with ease, but once I'd get into DC, the combination of traffic, lower speed, and SO MANY TRAFFIC LIGHTS just made it impossible.

I ended up moving to a city in Maryland right outside of DC. Literally, I'm five minutes from the MD/DC border now. To get to work, it's about 10 miles. Yet now, I will STILL typically spend 45-60 minutes driving there because of the city driving. It's absolutely horrendous. So when people from a crowded metropolitan area are gasping because something is 25 miles away, it isn't because we're not used to driving that distance (especially DC, when the vast majority of the population probably commutes an average of 60-90 miles), it's just that - in our heads - 25 miles is going to take HOURS to get there.

But you and me, we both know that down there, it'll take 25 minutes tops.

1972: Trying to look like Marlon Brando or Liz Taylor
2012: Trying NOT to look like Marlon Brando or Liz Taylor

1972: Seeds and stems
2012: Roughage

1972: Hoping for a BMW
2012: Hoping for a BM

1972: Going to a new, hip joint
2012: Going for a new hip joint

1972: Rolling Stones
2012: Kidney Stones

1972: Screw the system
2012: Upgrade the system

1972: Disco
2012: Costco

1972: Parents begging you to get your hair cut
2012: Children begging you to get their heads shaved

1972: Passing the drivers' test
2012: Passing the vision test

1972: Whatever
2012: Depends_________________I am a Star Wars fan. That doesn't mean that I hate or love Jar Jar. That doesn't mean I hate or love Lucas, or agree or disagree 100% with him. That doesn't mean I prefer the PT over the OT, or vice versa. That doesn't mean I hate the EU, or even love all of it (or even read all of it). These are not prerequisites. Being a man is not a prerequisite. Being a geek is not a prerequisite. The only prerequisite is that I love something about Star Wars. I am a Star Wars fan.

Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2012 7:29 pm

Message

Salaris VornModerator

Joined: 02 Feb 2008Posts: 2356Location: New York, USA

"Archaeologists VS Nazis

Nazis first began to develop a hatred for Archaeologists when it was discovered that their submarines, secret bases, and tanks were susceptible to infiltration by Archaeologist operatives. They also found that archaeologists were better at hand to hand combat than most of their top SS agents. This became a serious problem, especially after the United States discovered this, and began training crack teams of archaeologists, ending in the defeat of the Third Reich. "

Taken from the Uncyclopedia entry on Archaeologist. _________________

Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2012 10:23 pm

Message

Mara Jade SkywalkerAdministrator

Joined: 15 Feb 2008Posts: 6257Location: Beyond Shadows

Haha! That's pretty good. _________________"It's not about the legacy you leave, it's about the life you live." ~Mara Jade Skywalker